The Lookout

Another journalist fell prey to a fake story on a satirical website, and reported it as news. This time, a blogger for the Washington Post reported—wrongly—that Sarah Palin, the former Republican candidate for vice president who recently parted way with Fox News, had moved on to the Al-Jazeera network to reach millions of "devoutly religious people."

Oops.

As surfaced by Politico, Washington Post blogger Suzi Parker cited the Daily Currant as her source for a “She the People” column under the headline “Sarah Palin tries to stay relevant.”

Parker even pulled a quote from the story supposedly from the maverick herself:

“As you all know, I’m not a big fan of newspapers, journalists, news anchors and the liberal media in general,” Palin said. “But I met with the folks at Al-JaJizzraa (sic) and they told me they reach millions of devoutly religious people who don’t watch CBS or CNN. That tells me they don’t have a liberal bias.”

Al-Jazeera recently made news when it bought the network Current TV, owned partly by Al Gore. The network plans to launch Al-Jazeera America later this year, but not, as Politico confirmed, with Sarah Palin on board.

The Washington Post later posted a correction:

An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported that Sarah Palin had signed on as a contributor to the Al Jazeera America news network. The blogger cited a report on the Daily Currant Web site as the basis for that information without realizing that the piece was satirical.

The Washington Post joins a growing group that has fallen for a fake story. Recently, a radio host in Minnesota was tricked by a doctored photo showing drones flying in formation over President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

And the Onion crowed that it had fooled China’s main daily newspaper, People's Daily Online, which ran its story announcing that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had been named Sexiest Man Alive.

The former Alaskan governor, however, who likes to make her own news, tweeted her own fake scoop in response:

"Hey @washingtonpost, I'm having coffee with Elvis this week. He works at the Mocha Moose in Wasilla."